It was a travesty of football management, but one of the greatest pieces of sporting theatre imaginable. As a howling monsoon turned Buenos Aires's Estadio Monumental into a Blade Runner set on Saturday, Diego Maradona played out yet another unforgettable scene in the movie of his bizarre life when Argentina came back to find a last-ditch winner against Peru and retain their hopes of reaching the World Cup finals.

By the time the climax arrived, in the 94th minute of the match, raindrops had virtually covered the television lenses, obliterating the detail of the game but heightening the drama. The heavens seemed to be weeping for Argentina, first in despair when Peru equalised with 18 seconds of normal time remaining and then with joy when the home side restored their lead and revived their hopes.

Maradona had done just about everything wrong. In fact he has been doing almost everything wrong since he was appointed head coach 11 months ago. The chances must be that he still has a few more wrong moves up his sleeve, perhaps tomorrow, when he sends his side out in Montevideo to get the result against Uruguay that will secure their place in South Africa.

On Saturday night he became surely the first top-level manager to celebrate a crucial goal by running on to the pitch to perform a solo belly-slide. Try imagining the buttoned-up Alf Ramsey, the chain-smoking César Luis Menotti or the terminally suave Marcello Lippi trying that one. But the factor that really separates him from other international managers, past and present, is a seemingly total lack of selectorial and tactical acumen, nakedly displayed on Saturday.

This is a man who was put in charge of a nation used to producing more great footballers than just about anybody, and whose players won the Olympic tournament a year ago, but who has responded by calling up 78 players for 11 matches without including Argentina's best defender, Walter "The Wall" Samuel, or most creative player, Juan Román Riquelme. That's like Fabio Capello whimsically omitting John Terry and Wayne Rooney.

For the make-or-break match against Peru there were several characteristically bizarre decisions from Maradona, including a second cap to a 36-year-old central defender, Rolando Schiavi, and a place on the bench for Martín Palermo, 36 next month, who is best remembered outside his homeland for missing three penalties in a single match against Colombia in 1999, the cue for a decade in the international wilderness.

So fixated is Maradona on history that you almost expect him to call up Antonio Rattín or Alfredo Di Stéfano, or even to raid the cemetery of La Chacarita in his home town to exhume Angel Labruna and Adolfo Pedernera, members of the River Plate and Argentina forward line of the 1940s known as La Máquina – the machine. In the Sky studio, Osvaldo Ardiles had the air of a man who has long lost the ability to be surprised by his former team‑mate's decisions.

Argentina were disjointed in the first half and rubbish after the interval, when Peru outplayed them. Goodness knows what Carlos Tevez and Sergio Agüero, languishing among the unused substitutes, thought when the head coach sent on the lumbering Palermo at the start of the second period. But three minutes later the graceful Pablo Aimar, called up for the first time in three years, found the pass he had been looking for all night, allowing Gonzalo Higuaín to open the scoring.

And, terrible as they were, Argentina's desperate all-stops-out attacking in the final minutes had a certain epic grandeur, particularly after Hernán Rengifo had struck the equaliser that seemed to seal their fate. Palermo, inevitably, stabbed in the point-blank winner.

Maybe Maradona has succeeded in crafting a side in the image of his own life and career, where chaos and squalor are perpetually redeemed in the eyes of his people by moments of transcendent beauty and glory. If so, the rest of the world had better watch out.

Cuts could help whole of London experience 2012

Gail Emms, Britain's Olympic badminton heroine, regrets the decision to abandon the London 2012 plan of providing a special arena for her sport, part of the organisers' cost-cutting measures. "It would be very disappointing if badminton goes to Wembley Arena or somewhere else," she said the other day. "As an athlete, you want to be close to everything that's going on in the Olympic Park. It's an important part of the experience." But the concept of segregating the Olympics is surely overrated. Whereas tumbleweed now rolls through the parks in Sydney and Athens, back in 1992 Barcelona reaped the benefit of dispersing the events around existing venues, involving the whole city and thereby making it feel like one giant theatre of sport. Thanks to the financial crisis, that may be happening in London.

Grand prix gremlin lurking in Ecclestone's calendar

Don't say you weren't warned about Donington Park's continuing inability to fund the work necessary to hold a grand prix next summer. Bernie Ecclestone is still extending the deadline, but sooner or later he is either going to have to deal with the British Racing Drivers' Club over giving the race back to Silverstone or abandon the idea of a holding it at all. Once again you have to wonder whether that was always in his mind, because anyone organising a 2010 British grand prix will start with an Ecclestone-imposed handicap.

The date on the new Formula One calendar, announced last month, is 11 July, which clashes with the climax of the World Cup, announced several years ago. Whether or not England reach the final in Johannesburg, a high proportion of potential spectators will opt to stay at home and watch the biggest single event in world sport. Do you think Ecclestone, who misses nothing, was unaware of that when the calendar was drawn up?

Ferguson's apology that wasn't deserves short shrift

Putting on a show of apologising without actually saying you're sorry for what you've done is a weaselly feature of modern life. Sir Alex Ferguson's version is to apologise for uttering his recent criticism of the referee Alan Wylie's physical fitness without actually withdrawing his baseless allegations. It would be a shame if he were allowed to get away with it.